Law Commons^™

Defending Truth, Cynthia V. Ward, Peter A. Alces

Cynthia V. Ward

No abstract provided.

Defending Truth, Cynthia V. Ward, Peter A. Alces

Peter A. Alces

No abstract provided.

Coordinating Compliance Incentives, Veronica Root

Veronica Root

In today’s regulatory environment, a corporation engaged in wrongdoing can be sure of one thing: regulators will point to an ineffective compliance program as a key cause of institutional misconduct. The explosion in the importance of compliance is unsurprising given the emphasis that governmental actors — from the Department of Justice, to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to even the Commerce Department — place on the need for institutions to adopt “effective compliance programs.” The governmental actors that demand effective compliance programs, however, have narrow scopes of authority. DOJ Fraud handles violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the …

Legal And Ethical Considerations For Policing Nongovernmental Actors In Space, Sara Langston

Sara Langston

Usa: Millions Of Cats Killed, Millions Of Cats Declawed; The Culture Of Convenience And The Lack Of Respect For Life, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

"I Am The Master": Some Popular Culture Images Of Ai In Humanity's Courtroom, Christine Corcos

Christine A. Corcos

No abstract provided.

When Should The First Amendment Protect Judges From Their Unethical Speech?, Lynne H. Rambo

Lynne H. Rambo

Judges harm the judicial institution when they engage in inflammatory or overtly political extrajudicial speech. The judiciary can be effective only when it has the trust of the citizenry, and judicial statements of that sort render it impossible for citizens to see judges as neutral and contemplative arbiters. This lack of confidence would seem especially dangerous in times like these, when the citizenry is as polarized as it has ever been.

Ethical codes across the country (based on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct) prohibit judges from making these partisan, prejudicial or otherwise improper remarks. Any discipline can be undone, …

Rethinking The Secular: Religion, Ethics And Science In Food Regulation, Richard Mohr

Richard Mohr

This paper explores some issues at the intersection of regulation and religion, as they apply to food. It reports on a work in progress examining the regulations and values that affect choices at food and drink outlets in an inner suburban street in Sydney.

It is part of a larger projected study of food as a central social, material and religious concern. In it we are exploring questions around community relations in a culturally and religiously diverse society. Here I focus on the ways religious, ethical and scientific considerations interact with regulatory regimes, whether those of government, industry, or religious …

Musings On Mediation, Kleenex, And (Smudged) White Hats, Nancy A. Welsh

Nancy Welsh

This Essay speculates on the global future of mediation. It anticipates that mediation’s popularity will continue to grow both in the U.S. and abroad particularly as courts continue to encourage and institutionalize the process. Meanwhile, the Essay acknowledges the existence and continuing development of a relatively small cadre of elite lawyers and retired judges who serve as private mediators in large, complex matters.

The Essay also raises concerns, though, regarding the current lack of clarity in the goals and procedural characteristics that define mediation. The Essay asserts that such lack of clarity invites abuse of the mediation privilege and exclusionary …

High Court Pretense, Lower Court Candor: Judicial Impartiality After Capterton V. Massey Coal Co., Lynne H. Rambo

Lynne H. Rambo

Apolitical, impartial judging has always been our judicial ideal. In the last twenty years, however, special interest groups have sought power over (and through) judges by pouring millions into judicial elections, and the Court has recognized their first amendment right to do so. In the midst of this politicization of judicial elections, the Court five years ago reinforced the impartiality ideal, holding very broadly in Caperton v. Massey Coal Co. that it violates due process for a judge to sit whenever there is a “probability of bias,” i.e., whenever the average judge is unlikely to be neutral. Caperton involved a …

Virtuous Billing, Randy D. Gordon, Nancy B. Rapoport

Randy D. Gordon

Aristotle tells us, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that we become ethical by building good habits and we become unethical by building bad habits: “excellence of character results from habit, whence it has acquired its name (êthikê) by a slight modification of the word ethos (habit).” Excellence of character comes from following the right habits. Thinking of ethics as habit-forming may sound unusual to the modern mind, but not to Aristotle or the medieval thinkers who grew up in his long shadow. “Habit” in Greek is “ethos,” from which we get our modern word, “ethical.” In Latin, habits are moralis, which …

Professionalism And Ethics Section Takes Its Turn, Jodi Nafzger

Jodi Nafzger

Membership in [the Professionalism and Ethics Section of the Idaho State Bar] provides Idaho attorneys an opportunity to work closely with colleagues who share a vision for a profession that embodies personal courtesy and professional and ethical integrity. We are fortunate to practice law in a state that values this vision, and we invite you to attend our CLEs [Continuing Legal Education] and join our membership. [excerpt]

The Growing Consumer Exposure To Nanotechnology In Everyday Products: Regulating Innovative Technologies In Light Of Lessons From The Past, Katharine Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

This Article discusses the public health, regulatory, legal, and ethical issues raised by the developing appreciation of the negative physical effects and potential health risks associated with nanotech products, and is arranged as follows. After this Introduction, this Article describes the present scientific understanding of the health risks associated with the consumption of nanoparticles. Next, a summary of the existing FDA regulatory structure that governs food, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and sunscreens is provided along with an explanation of why these regulations fail to protect public health when applied to regulate the nanotech versions of these products. The Article goes on …

Basic Values And The Victim's State Of Mind, Meir Dan-Cohen

Meir Dan-Cohen

No abstract provided.

Sports And Entertainment Agents And Agent-Attorneys: Discourses And Conventions Concerning Crossing Jurisdictional And Professional Borders, David S. Caudill

David S Caudill

Questions regarding the ethical obligations, pitfalls, and dilemmas facing attorneys who become sports or entertainment agents are not new. However, despite a substantial discourse on the topic, the sense persists that being both a lawyer and an agent is problematic. The applicable laws, including ethical regulations, seem to be clear, but are subject not only to law‟s usual jurisdictional variations and interpretive instability, but also to the mediation of conventions or tacit understandings that pervade the sports and entertainment industries.

Gender As A Variable In Natural-Language Processing: Ethical Considerations, Brian N. Larson

Brian Larson

Researchers and practitioners in naturallanguage processing (NLP) and related fields should attend to ethical principles in study design, ascription of categories/variables to study participants, and reporting of findings or results. This paper discusses theoretical and ethical frameworks for using gender as a variable in NLP studies and proposes four guidelines for researchers and practitioners. The principles outlined here should guide practitioners, researchers, and peer reviewers, and they may be applicable to other social categories, such as race, applied to human beings connected to NLP research.

Daredevil: Legal (And Moral?) Vigilante, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

The Law And Ethics Of Civil Depositions , A. Darby Dickerson

Darby Dickerson

No abstract provided.

Lawyers And Biblical Prophets, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

This is part of a broader exploration of the suggestion that the biblical prophets-Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Nathan, and the others-are sources of ethical reflection and moral example for modern American lawyers. The suggestion appears to be unusual; I am not sure why. The Prophets were, more than anything else, lawyers-as their successors, the Rabbis of the Talmud, were. They were neither teachers nor bureaucrats, not elected officials or priests or preachers. And the comparison is not an ancient curiosity: Much of what admirable lawyer-heroes have done in modern America has been prophetic in the biblical sense-that is, what they …

The Gentleman In Professional Ethics, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

The Legal Ethics Of Servanthood, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Symposium: Client Counseling And Moral Responsibility, Thomas L. Shaffer, Deborah L. Rhode, Paul R. Tremblay, Robert F. Cochran

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Business Lawyers, Baseball Players, And The Hebrew Prophets, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

This article is a reflection on the ethics of practiving law for business, building on the career of Scott Boras, who acts as agent and lawyer for professional baseball players. The reflection wonders at the clout corporate lawyers have over their clients, mentioning, of course, some personal experiences (back before the invention of moveable type) from the author's two years in a large business-oriented law firm, as well as on Mr. Boras's significant influence in the baseball world. The object, finally, is ethical reflection on such things as the particular a lawyer has when she in in house rather than …

Torture, Necessity And Existential Politics, Christopher Kutz

Christopher Kutz

No abstract provided.

Climate Justice, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

Eric Posner and David Weisbach take the threat of climate change seriously. Their book Climate Change Justice offers policy prescriptions that deserve serious attention. While the authors adopt the framework of conventional welfare economics, they show a willingness to engage with noneconomic perspectives, which softens their conclusions. Although they are right to see a risk that overly aggressive ethical claims could derail international agreement on restricting greenhouse gases, their analysis makes climate justice too marginal to climate policy. The developed world does have a special responsibility for the current climate problem, and we should be willing both to agree to …

Modern-Day Monitorships, Veronica Root

Veronica Root

When a sexual abuse scandal rocked Penn State, when Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior, and when servicers like Bank of America improperly foreclosed upon hundreds of thousands of homeowners, each organization entered into a Modern-Day Monitorship. Modern-Day Monitorships are utilized in an array of contexts to assist in widely varying remediation efforts. They provide outsiders a unique source of information about the efficacy of the tarnished organization’s efforts to remediate misconduct. Yet despite their use in high-profile and serious matters of organizational wrongdoing, they are not an outgrowth of careful study and deliberate planning. Instead, Modern-Day Monitorships have been employed …

Further Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin, Darren Stakey

Patricia E. Salkin

Ethical considerations continue to play a fundamental role in shaping the course of land use and developmental regulatory proceedings throughout the country. From an innocuous donation by one public official to his alma mater, to the outright bribery of a former mayor, the past year has been rife with a range of conduct implicating professional responsibility and land use.

Recent Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Current events across the country reveal no shortage of allegations of unethical conduct in the land use review process. Sadly, there are countless other media accounts of alleged and proven conflicts of interest and other ethical misconduct. In this annual review of reported decisions involving ethics in land use, recent decisions are discussed in the hopes that municipal attorneys will use this information as the basis of ongoing training for members of planning boards, zoning boards, and local legislative bodies who must be routinely reminded of not only their legal but ethical responsibilities in upholding the public trust.

When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Allegations of ethical misconduct by lawyers have all but completely overshadowed the substantive claims in the Chevron case. While both sides have been accused of flagrant wrongdoing, the charges against plaintiffs’ counsel appear to have captured more headlines and garnered more attention. The primary reason why the focus seems lopsided is that plaintiffs’ counsel were presumed to be the ones wearing white hats in this epic drama. This essay postulates that this seeming irony is not simply an example of personal ethical lapse, but in part tied to larger reasons why ethical violations are an occupational hazard for plaintiffs’ counsel …

Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Professional regulation of attorneys is still attempting to catch up with the burgeoning international legal profession, which until recently has been wholly unregulated. The primary effort has been through revisions to Model Rule 8.5 to extend the reach of the Rule to international cases and professional activities in foreign countries. Because Rule 8.5 was drafted for domestic multi-jurisdiction practice, however, it is based on assumptions about territoriality and the historical relationship between the jurisdiction of tribunals and the licensing of attorneys that are simply inapposite in international settings. As a result, applying Rule 8.5 to international tribunals and international advocacy …